


Inspiration

by CobaltCephalopod



Category: The Witcher (TV), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Bards, Gen, M/M, Magic, Magic!Jaskier, Musical Instruments
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-26
Updated: 2020-01-26
Packaged: 2021-02-27 05:26:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,131
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22411723
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CobaltCephalopod/pseuds/CobaltCephalopod
Summary: Between all the half-hummed melodies and scratched out words to be had over the course of decades, Geralt knows how Jaskier’s songs work and how they are made. He’s the subject of them, more often than not, and he can’t count the number of hours spent falling asleep to Jaskier’s strumming while he huddles closer to the dying fire to read what he’d scribbled so far.Or: I figured Filavandrel's lute probably has some kind of magic in it.
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion
Comments: 10
Kudos: 438





	Inspiration

Between all the half-hummed melodies and scratched out words to be had over the course of decades, Geralt knows how Jaskier’s songs work and how they are made. He’s the subject of them, more often than not, and he can’t count the number of hours spent falling asleep to Jaskier’s strumming while he huddles closer to the dying fire to read what he’d scribbled so far. 

He knows the look in Jaskier’s eyes, the foolhardy and reckless urge to see every gruesome and dangerous detail in an adventure, not to mention the color he adds to each tale to ‘liven it up’ as he claims. And though there’s not much point to Geralt listening to narration of his own actions, he’s never able to predict what shape the song will take and just how much of a light Jaskier will shine on him that is undeserving, unneeded—undeniable even as it chases the darkness in his corners back. 

He knows the bursts of song, half spoken and half woven while Jaskier’s still playing with the strands that will eventually be heard in every tavern in the country. For every evening spent playing in front of kings, Geralt knows Jaskier spends days finding the odes he wants to spin into the air to fit any mood the particular monarch might be in. The same notes that he plays in the company of nobles, Geralt hears in the fields and on the streets, from women who’ve forgone any words while tending the garden but the melody still slips through the corners of their mouths in snatches of song, to the men stocking their wares in the shop in the empty hours and thinking they won’t be overheard. Jaskier’s songs follow him even when he’s nowhere in sight and Geralt can’t escape the web of their sound. 

He knows Jaskier leaving is the end of that music, that the nights will be colder and quieter and his dreams are haunted by snatches of a voice’s whisper-soft lilt floating through the air, creating and crafting. He’d pushed him away, thinking he’d be free of the ties that had ended up tangling them together, and yet he’s followed by the memory of a laugh that rang often in his company and the voice that was never silent. It’s in the paltry imitation of the songs plucked out in taverns—he winces at every misplaced note and lists the differences with each bite of the meal souring in his mouth but it doesn’t change the tune that’s playing and how familiar it really is. 

He knows that the wide eyes that follow him now are different than the fearful ones that used to weigh on his back with every job and while he hasn’t heard a new ode since they parted, the old ones continue to circulate like the coin he’s given with gratitude instead of grudging. While the songs speak of his heroics, the memories they bring to mind are ones of Jaskier and his comoposing, mouthing words to feel the shape of them as they roll off his tongue and the ink-stains on his hands from the tap of his quill between thoughts. 

And Geralt knows he’s been getting listless lately. Still trying to find the truth in the stories and hearsay that people give him as reasons for hiring, he can imagine what Jaskier would say. Not everything—because Jaskier never did cease to surprise him with what might come out of his mouth—but enough that when the sandsyren blinds him and he hears Jaskier’s voice: his reflexes trip over the fact that she’d stolen it from his mind and for a split second his feet automatically shift towards the sound. The syren takes her que, striking him in the back and sending him collapsing to the ground under the lance of pain that stabs through him. Potions exhausted, he pushes himself up to see her through stinging eyes looming above, hissing with long dagger-teeth ready to sink through his throat in a single bite. He can feel the sand underneath him growing sticky with his blood, senses dulling as he slips into a haze where he feels no fear, only acceptance as the syren makes her lunge.

And the spells snaps tight around him. 

Because Jaskier laid hands on Filavandrel’s lute before he even began the witcher’s song and the strings held all the magic he needed to cast something that would span time and space farther than he ever would have expected. Every raised voice, every hushed one, every rendition of the song, any fragment of it, all of it spreading across the continent until every corner had heard some snatched verse or fragment of a lyric. Those spindles of a song spooling wider and wider, building a web of renown as their adventures wormed their way into the listening ears of so many that it was almost a call; a call to hope, to someone willing to wade through darkness to bring back the light. 

And maybe it begins to ring of myth, of the White Wolf that stalks the stalkers of the night, but that doesn’t lessen the power of it. Jaskier wove the words to a spell into the fabric of the world, because a bard’s power is in inspiration and the magic of a song that touches thousands of hearts is undefinable, until the moment it’s needed most. 

Geralt doesn’t think any further than the next second, open wounds stretching as he somehow finds the strength to roll out of the way while his fingers find the hilt of his sword. The amount of blood he’s lost and the toll of the fight on him must be greater than he’d thought, what else could explain that the same instant he slides the blade home in the syren’s chest, he hears the sound of a single note, plucked by smudged fingers and with a self-satisfied smile. The tone vibrates in his very bones and the pain fades for that split second, pushed back by the crystalline sharpness of it; and he misses the golden warmth as soon as it fades away again. 

The moment stays suspended, the memory of that note echoing in his mind even after he severes the syren’s head and drags himself back to town on heavy legs. Despite the pain throbbing through him, the thing that occupies his thoughts is the feeling of static running over his skin from the scant few heartbeats before he’d survived the fight victorious. He leaves the fringes of the desert behind after that, collecting his coin of course but his destination this time is fixed. He has had enough of wandering for the time being, there’s a certain bard he owes an apology to and an explanation from.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm also on [tumblr](https://squidpro-quo.tumblr.com/) and I'm open to requests or thoughts!


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